My auxlang
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2018 5:43 am
I had a thread about this in the old ZBB. It's basically an international auxiliary language, but there are some ideas I want to incorporate in it that maybe aren't that good for an IAL, so maybe one could consider it to be a bit of an engelang. In this project I have like three main goals:
Right now I have a decision to make that I just can't make up my mind about, so I thought about asking here if anyone has any opinions. What should I do about compounds? There are three options for how to handle compounds orthographically:
However, option 3 might be best for ease of writing. At least in Sweden and Finland, one of the absolutely most common spelling mistakes seems to be writing compounds as separate words. But how severe would the ambiguity this creates be? In Swedish there are a lot of compounds that change their meaning if you separate them, e.g:
femhundralappar = 500 kr bills
fem hundralappar = five 100 kr bills
femhundra lappar = 500 notes
vår kassapersonal = our cashiers
vår kassa personal = our crappy staff
djupfryst kycklinglever = deep-frozen chicken liver
djupfryst kyckling lever = deep-frozen chicken is alive
vårlök = spring onion
vår lök = our onion
grönsak = vegetable
grön sak = green thing
pumpagubbe = pumpkin man (perhaps a jack-o'-lantern)
pumpa gubbe = to f**k an old man
But maybe there's just something special about Swedish that causes this to be so common. Still, I think there are some types of compounds that may cause problems. For example ADJ+N compounds; how do you differentiate this from just a regular adjective modifying a regular noun? There may also be cases where an adjective is modifying a compound and you don't know if it's modifying only the first word or the whole thing. Compounds involving a verb and a noun could also be potentially confusing, because you don't know if the noun is a verb argument.
One could have a rule where the non-final words in a compound are modified somehow to show that they're part of a compound, but that would be just as hard to learn to do as it is to learn to write compounds with a dash inbetween.
So I'm just asking which method you think is the best, or if you have any other input.
- The conlang should be based on a large variety of natlangs.
- It should be as easy as possible for as many people as possible to learn.
- There should be as little ambiguity as possible in the language.
Right now I have a decision to make that I just can't make up my mind about, so I thought about asking here if anyone has any opinions. What should I do about compounds? There are three options for how to handle compounds orthographically:
- Spell compounds together, e.g. teapot.
- Put a dash in compounds, e.g. dependent-marking.
- Spell it as separate words, e.g. water buffalo.
However, option 3 might be best for ease of writing. At least in Sweden and Finland, one of the absolutely most common spelling mistakes seems to be writing compounds as separate words. But how severe would the ambiguity this creates be? In Swedish there are a lot of compounds that change their meaning if you separate them, e.g:
femhundralappar = 500 kr bills
fem hundralappar = five 100 kr bills
femhundra lappar = 500 notes
vår kassapersonal = our cashiers
vår kassa personal = our crappy staff
djupfryst kycklinglever = deep-frozen chicken liver
djupfryst kyckling lever = deep-frozen chicken is alive
vårlök = spring onion
vår lök = our onion
grönsak = vegetable
grön sak = green thing
pumpagubbe = pumpkin man (perhaps a jack-o'-lantern)
pumpa gubbe = to f**k an old man
But maybe there's just something special about Swedish that causes this to be so common. Still, I think there are some types of compounds that may cause problems. For example ADJ+N compounds; how do you differentiate this from just a regular adjective modifying a regular noun? There may also be cases where an adjective is modifying a compound and you don't know if it's modifying only the first word or the whole thing. Compounds involving a verb and a noun could also be potentially confusing, because you don't know if the noun is a verb argument.
One could have a rule where the non-final words in a compound are modified somehow to show that they're part of a compound, but that would be just as hard to learn to do as it is to learn to write compounds with a dash inbetween.
So I'm just asking which method you think is the best, or if you have any other input.